I love the French word “clairvoyance” for the term vision. My native French combines “clair” meaning “clear” and “voyance” meaning “vision” or according Wikipedia, “the alleged ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through extrasensory perception. Extrasensory perception has nothing to do with any Cartesian Excel sheet, a business plan or a to-do-list. It is the combination of a vision, motto and credo that touches our heart and moves us emotionally towards action.

All the musical technique (mastery of an instrument, knowledge of scales, harmony and chords) involved into a bebop Jazz musician improvising on Dizzy Gillespie’s wonderful classic “A night in Tunisia” is irrelevant to most listeners. It is the sound, the colorful melody line, Dizzy Latin influence, the dynamics and the way the theme and music transports us into the delight and pleasure of listening (for those of us who enjoy Bebop Jazz).

We’ve all experienced this emotional inner drive that compels us to buy “things” we don’t need. Organization alike should consider this emotional side of humans and translate it into a clear vision, mission and value statement. An inspiring company vision will rally its workforce towards a cause that transcendences religion, beliefs, personal idiosyncrasies or well known disagreements between Sales and Product Development. Company vision is difficult to express when one of the core priorities is the next quarterly “Frankfurt Main share-value.” The transformational vision given by management should inspire, motivate, and move the entire workforce behind a common clear (clairvoyance) vision. Simon Sinek comes here to the rescue with his excellent insight, pointing out the importance of our dreams (clairvoyance) that inspire people and move them towards action:

Vision does not express itself best within a business plan, an Excel table or a to-do-list. Transformation goes beyond physical change; it is first a mental or “spiritual” exercise. Our western business models are built on rationale and for the most part non-renewable and non-sustainable short term profit. Character traits such as empathy, forgiveness, love, and unconditional altruism towards others are rarely part of a job interview! These character traits belong to the necessary building block any organization needs to display in order to thrive and grow. How should we then quantify and ratify character traits such as empathy, forgiveness, love, and unconditional altruism towards others into a business plan or an Excel table?

That’s where an organization’s culture comes in. A company culture reflecting an organization’s vision, mission and values based upon extrasensory perception for each individual to identify himself or herself with! An Organization’s culture all co-workers, partners, and customers can identify with and support.

Manuka Wholefoods is a remarkable little shop owned by a family of New Zealanders living in Chichester (West Sussex) in the southern part of the United Kingdom. Manuka Wholefoods retails a full array of organic products such as grocery, dairy products, fruit and veggies, skin and body care, nutritional supplements and organic wines.For personal reasons, the Manuka Wholefoods business owners had to travel right before relocating their shop within Chichester. Beyond the traditional emails sent to their customer database, the on-site working crew, led by highly capable and motivated Shop Manager Claire Burgess, decided to give customers a little map-flyer helping them to visualize the new location.1. First, start the crowd-sourcing project within your own team.Creating a readable map everybody could understand turned out to be a challenge. Claire could have printed out the typical Google map, had it photocopied and “voila, here you go customers, take it or leave it! But insightful Claire Burgess wanted to go a step further. She decided that not only should customers understand and be able to read her map, but more importantly customers should be able to visualize the new shop location. In order to create the best possible drawing, Claire first sought advice from her own team. By doing so, she enthusiastically included them in the project while gaining their motivation and support. 2. Crowd-source with own employees for personnel engagement and motivationThe three Manuka Wholefoods team members had different views and expectations on what the map should look like. After briefly conferring with each other, they all decided to try out a Google version. At that time, the Google map seemed the logical choice since the team could perfectly understand the directions from the old location to the new. 3. Test your idea and ask for genuine feedback from your crowdClaire Burgess went one step further. She started showing the map to her customers, and asked them if they could visualize and understand where the shop was going? Although 80% of Manuka Wholefoods’ customer base is from Chichester, most of the customers to whom the map was shown had genuine difficulties reading it and understanding where the shop was moving to. Claire’s team realized that many of their customers did not know the street names or names of the city landmarks. The team had to pause and accept the fact that the map they created and perceived as logical and easy to follow, came across to the majority of their customers as confusing. The quintessential lesson they learned was the fact that they did not find out until they genuinely started to ask.4. You miss the point if your business gets it, but your “crowd” or customers don’tManuka Wholefoods’ sales team started asking customers for suggestions. It became clearer that a readable map would have to be made from scratch. Unneeded street names were removed. Thanks to the help of many customers, the map became a crowd-manufactured effort featuring four arrows originating from the former shop and ending at the new location. The customers preferred a map overview with directions along the main roads rather than the most direct route along unfamiliar streets. Furthermore, customers then requested that it would help if pictures of known landmarks and shops could be added to the map to create a complete visual of the new location.5. Assume nothing and get your crowd’s attentionAlthough posters announcing the move were strategically placed, these seemed to be of little use unless pointed out to customers. In this day and age, we are all busy, preoccupied and in a rush. We see but do not read; we hear but do not listen! That’swhy folks, with any message you want to communicate, you’ve got to get people’s attention. We all are creatures of habit. We often overestimate the relevance of a message by genuinely assuming that people are interested. Once the map had been finalized, 750 copies were personally given out by Claire Burgess and her team. Furthermore Manuka Wholefoods will have to distribute additional flyers to encourage its customers to create new shopping habits. How many customers will forget and realize that the location has changed when suddenly faced with the old empty shop? Over the next three to six months, Manuka Wholefoods will have to remind, coach and reward customers for having adjusted to a major change: shopping at its new location.What is your crowd-sourcing experience as a business owner? What are some of the lessons you’ve had the chance to learn? I am looking forward to your comments and suggestions: Until next time, I wish you all a successful week.

I purchased Jacob Morgan’s “The Collaborative Organization” on Amazon UK at its full price. “The Collaborative Organization” is a strategic Enterprise Social Software guide and a monumental must read for any CEO, CMO, CIO and CCO (Chief Culture/Customer Officer) wanting to successfully implement Enterprise Social Software within his enterprise. Erik Brynjolfsson, coauthor of Race Against the Machine writes: “Most business leaders understand how critical collaborative tools are to the success of their companies. What they need now is a guide based on hard data and practical experiences that show how to put those tools to work. Morgan fills that need with this book.” “Rapid pace of change is occurring in technology, human behavior and business culture” writes Morgan. It is imperative for organizations to check and if necessary update obsolete intranet/extranet platforms and radically transform internal and external communication. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Lew Platt once said: “If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times as productive.” Please bear in mind that Morgan has a full array of added case studies on his Chess Media Group website adding tremendous value to the study of his book.1. Enterprise Collaboration Tools bring real advantages to companies willing to implement social business software solutions.Among the top reasons for enterprises considering the implementation of Enterprise Social Software (ESS) Morgan’s top six are:– Connecting colleagues across teams and geographies (72%)– Increasing productivity (65%)– Fostering employee engagement (60%)– Fostering innovation (59%)– Capturing and retaining institutional knowledge (59%)– Enabling access to subject expert (54%)Morgan uses many case studies to back up his enterprise social software exposé. 2. Accelerate the serendipity of weak ties with the use of social business software solutions“One of the most visible changes for companies is often how horizontal communications lines open up across various enterprise silos” writes Morgan. He discusses the risks companies are facing by not implementing social software tools as well as the possible threats to be faced while implementing them. 3. Excellent delivery of the technology landscapeMorgan’s technology landscape is a strategic overview social leaders will greatly appreciate when considering their social platform menu. Morgan and his Chess Media Group have done a meticulous job at surveying all the different collaborating platforms, and the percentage of companies using mashups, wikis, blogs, prediction market platforms, forums, Ideation platforms, RSS feeds, micro-blogs, collaborative file sharing and social email and much more. 4. Social Enterprise Software evaluation matrixMorgan offers an excellent vendor evaluation matrix, which is very well presented and easy to use. It will help social leaders to rank ESS vendors according to specific areas such as::– Vendor management, product roadmap and viability– Ease of use and intuitiveness– Price– Features– Technology integration and security– Customization and integration– Product features: people– Support and maintenance– Vertical expertise5. Adaptive emergent collaboration frameworkMorgan delivers another useful matrix with five core areas:– Goals and objectives (company, department, metrics, customers and employees)– Organizational culture (leadership, mutually beneficial value, change management, openness and evangelists– Process (escalation, information management, automation)– Technologies (tool selection, integration, training, adoption, maintenance and upgrades)– Governance (best practices, guidelines, employees, customers, metrics)Morgan recommends a maturity model of adoption made of seven steps and the different milestones achieved during their implementation.6. Culture and technology are the two most important driversMorgan stresses enterprise culture and how it is one of the most crucial pillars of Enterprise 2.0 when attempting to establish the right foundation for hybrid, intern and external communities to communicate and engage. Morgan quotes Carl Frappaolo “Culture is the single greatest potential asset or detriment. A culture conducive to collaboration will compensate to some degree for awkward processes and inadequate technology. In contrast, a culture not conducive to collaboration will ignore, or in the worst case sabotage, even the most sophisticated technology and process approaches to open transparent sharing.”The Chess Media Group has meticulously researched and produced a superb textbook for any CCO, CMO, CIO and CMO to assist him or her into implementing enterprise social software. Morgan has delivered another crucial piece of the social business puzzle on how to prepare, organize, evaluate, measure and drive the adoption of social software tools. Although Morgan has written a superb work, one frustration remains: the somewhat poor quality of the charts and figures as displayed by the publisher. A little more effort could have been made in order to enhance this work. The Collaborative Enterprise belongs to the text-books every social business strategist needs to own. My personal thanks and kudos to Jacob Morgan for having published a wonderful book that greatly contributes to the new discipline of social business strategy.

I bought Mark FidelmanSocialized!on Amazon at its full price (no discounts or coupons from Mark) and just finished devouring it. Fidelman delivers a fundamental work that greatly contributes to the heated debate of Social Business development. Fidelman not only shows, but proves how quintessential it is for businesses to harness the power of social. Not only with tools and technologies, but first with their immediate communities aka company workforce. Time is ripe for dismantling the prevailing command-and-control leadership style. The militaristic/hierarchical leadership approach ought to be replaced with Jon Husband’s Wirearchy structure. So why should you read Socialized!? Social Media ROI expert Dr. Natalie Petouhoff: “Fidelman’s ability to simplify key concepts like the Digital Village, Darwin’s Funnel, and the Digital Network, gives the reader a unique and important understanding of the power of Social Business. You’ll be sorry if you don’t read this book before your competitors do.”

Fidelman and his team interviewed business leaders around the globe in order to present to us a state-of-the-art social business road-map. Fidelman lives and breathes what he writes. He is the sort of individual any social minded person ought to connect with; either on Twitter/LinkedIn, and Forbes where he is a regular contributor. Socialized! not only talks the walk but most importantly walks the talk. It is a practical text-book backed up with countless case studies and examples anyone aspiring to become a social leader should be aware of and study2. Culture, culture and more culture is the foundation to any social business undertakingFidelman emphasizes culture as the 101 prerequisite to any potentially successful Social Business Strategy. Fidelman: “Why after all do we insist on employees following our orders, and why do we call it insubordination if they question them? … Yet the companies that are leading in today’s world recognize the benefit of an empowered workforce that feels connected to the organization. Empowered employees understand not only how to make great products, but more importantly how to create cultures that continue to make great products well into the future.” Socialized!will assist CMOs and CCOs (Chief Cultural/Customer Officers) not only to analyze their existent Social Business state, but provide them with a detailed 10-point Social Business Culture development program. 3. Building first an internal digital village and then an external digital networkOnce the infrastructure of a cooperative culture has been established, business leaders will need to handpick the internalevangelists and shepherds (regardless of their rank) who will co-create their internal digital village — the nuts and bolts to any Social Business foundation. CXOs need to remember that becoming a Customer Service or/and Customer-Experience oriented company first requires the emotional support and buy-in of their internalcommunities or “Smart Tribes” (as coined by Christine Comaford in her brand new book). These “Smart Tribes” or internal communities represent the company’s intrinsic power that will transform the traditional working communities into enthusiastic business advocates. After the creation of an apropos culture and the establishment of the right people foundation, the social team will need to select the social media platforms and its supportive collaborative technologies (Intranet/Extranet/SCRM/Social Business Software). This will make sure that the Social Business community sets up the proper internal tools to construct its external digital network.4. The new Social Business PlaybookYoutility author Jay Baer states: “Socialized!is an imminently readable, practical, and modern guide to social business. The playbook section alone is worth the price, and then some. Fidelman has added an important piece to the corporate social transformation puzzle.” Fidelman: “In practice, management should provide the right atmosphere, guidelines, technologies, and opportunities for employees to thrive.” Socialized! delivers a 15-point playbook: here are some of the highlights:– Building an internal and external community– Connecting and empowering thought leaders– Recruiting a Chief Social Strategist or a Chief Cultural/Customer Officer– Becoming an own media publisher, which makes me think of Michael Brito’s upcoming book: Your Brand.– Replacing traditional inbound marketing with content marketing– Leveraging employees, suppliers and partners to foster innovation– Enhancing customer support to become the strength of your company– Using Gamification to engage employees, partners and customers– Creating the potential for serendipitous relationshipsThis last point is my favorite and reminds me of the romantic comedy “Serendipity” starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. Fidelman himself gives a wonderful example of serendipity with StaffUnity: an automated employee lunch club system provider.5. The rise of the social employeeFidelman makes the case that, social networks, consumerization of IT, mobility, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device: smartphones, phablets and tablets) and cloud computing are all being part of the social and technological developments a 21st century enterprise cannot fail anymore to ignore. 6. Measuring the ROI (Return On Investment) of a Social Business StrategyFidelman stresses that social business initiatives should only be undertaken if those can be measured. He goes on to say: “Before starting any social initiatives, you must first identify objectives such as: “improving customer relationships, product innovation, acquiring and retaining employees and growing revenues.”

Image Credit: PulsePointGroup.com: The Economics of the Socially Engaged Enterprise

Social Business metrics and ROI are very well documented in a 2012 study by MIT in collaboration with the Deloitte institute. The Economist Intelligence Unit and the PulsePoint Group published a study showing that 81% of interviewed leaders agree that social engagement has the following tangible benefits on the following areas:– Project management– Innovation– Collaboration– Efficiency gains– Cost savingIn conclusion, Fidelman’s Socialized!is a management textbook that provides all the necessary steps for a clear pathway towards a successful social enterprise journey: 1. Reviewing the existent culture of an enterprise2. Setting up an internal digital village3. Attaching an external digital village to the internal one4. Establishing a social business strategy5. Measuring Social Business ROI6. Reviewing, correcting, adapting and repeatingAny leader wanting to understand the implications and repercussions of a Social Business development program should study and dissect Socialized!. Kudos and thanks to Mark Fidelman’s altruistic attitude for having taken the time to give us one of the best researched Social Business Strategy text-books ever written thus far.Follow Bruno Gebarski on Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+http://twitter.com/BrunoGebarskihttp://Linkedin.com/in/BrunoGebarskihttp://http://bitly.com/BrunoGebarski

We often consider spider webs a nuisance … something annoying, but we often dismiss the very skillful show of one of our planet’s state-of-the-art technologies. In Part One, we reviewed five remarkable characteristics on how an aspiring Enterprise 2.0 could learn from spider silk properties. Let’s look at five more lessons a discerning observer should be willing to consider:6. Spider Silk combines both tensile strength and ductility (stretchability)Scientists at Arizona State University (ASU) have decoded the secret of spider silk’s strength and what makes the fiber at least five times as tough as piano wire. “Spider silk has a unique combination of mechanical strength and elasticity that make it one of the toughest materials we know of,” said Professor Jeffery Yarger of ASU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. The tensile strength of spider silk combined with its ductile i.e. elastic properties (stretching and retracting) is well worth appreciating. For any of us, it would be hard to imagine grabbing a man-made bar of steel and stretching it to an extra forty per cent to its original length. The fact that this exceptional biological polymer (related to collagen) perfectly combines tensile strength and ductility is mind-boggling to say the least.Image credit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/scienceHow do we set up company structures that are more flexible? Businesses that can “stretch” (such as a spiderweb capturing prey) when customer demand grows, but also businesses that can “retract” when its demand decreases? How should these businesses embrace structural changes and seamlessly rebound when disruptive trends kick in? Such theoretical questions are difficult to answer and ratify. An adaptive (stretchable and retractable) enterprise roadmap would be even more complex.7. The Spiderweb silk has stickiness propertiesSpiders produce five main categories of silk. One of them is the capture-spiral silk, used for the capturing lines of the web. This sort of silk is sticky, extremely stretchy and tough, which should make us wonder how a spider can avoid entangling itself in its own web. To this day, scientists are still not sure how it is possible for them not to get caught in their own trap.What is the level of cultural stick-to-itiveness that companies have to offer? How does the Human Resource department attract, motivate and retain talent while minimizing personnel turnover?8. Spiders create exceptional spider web architecturesIn Science Daily’s column “New Light Shed On the Mysteries of Spider Silk”, Dr. Kristie Koski and her colleagues from the University of Stanford report: “There has never been anything quite like spider silk. Stretch it. Bend it. Soak it. Dry it out. Spider silk holds up … it can expand nearly a third greater than its original length and snap right back like new. Ounce-for-ounce spider silk is even stronger than Kevlar, the human-made fiber used in bulletproof vests.” Koski goes on to write: “The complete elastic response of spider silk is described by five elastic constants that define how the web reacts to any possible combination of forces –stretching, bending, soaking, pulling or twisting.” Image credit: http://www.redorbit.comHow about our business structures? How far can we stretch them, bend them, pull them or even twist them without destroying them? Have we ever considered the wisdom of a spider web and all its hidden attributes? Have we ever tried to apply some of those principles to the form-functions of our schools, universities, government and businesses?9. Spider webs can capture water from the airIn the journal Nature, Chinese scientists have reported that silk is not only renowned for its strength, but also outstanding at collecting water from the air: “Sparing the creatures the hunt for a drink”. We are here witnessing the awe-inspiring beauty of one of the most incredible sights God’s engineering hand has ever created. “A tapestry of bright pearl-like water drops hanging on thin spider silk in the morning after fog” says Lei Jiang, the scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He goes on to say: “The spider silk can be several tens of micrometers in diameter, whereas the water drops can be thousands of micrometers wide. The silk properties change as it contacts water, which causes the bumpy silk fibers to smooth out and drives the water towards the bumpy knots in the spindle, where it gathers into large droplets.” Image credit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/scienceDo we conceive products with compelling beauty and majesty while promoting safety, health and sustainability? When considering some of the shoddy architecture I’ve personally seen in Paris, London, Los Angeles, Manila, Osaka, Beijing, Moscow, Barcelona and New York, I do not think they contribute to the beauty and enhancement of our environment. Do we boost technology by making it sustainable, durable and of compelling beauty such as the pearl-like water drops hanging on thin spider silk? Or does our industry prefer to plan the breakdown of specific parts for purpose of future gain and enrichment? 10. Spider silk has antibacterial propertiesIn their research article: “Evidence for antimicrobial activity associated with common house spider silk”, Simon Wright and Sara Goodacre, from the school of Biology at the University of Nottingham, researched and proved the antimicrobial quality of some spider silk when confronted with micro organisms. In Heimer, S. (1988). Wunderbare Welt der Spinnen. Urania. p.14, we read that the peasants in the southern Carpathian Mountains used to cut up tubes built by Atypus and cover wounds with the inner lining. It reportedly facilitated healing, and even connected with the skin. This is believed to be due to antiseptic properties of spider silk and because the silk is rich in vitamin K, which can be effective in clotting blood.Do our company products and services sustain our livelihood? Do our business protocols provide our workforce with physical and emotional assets in form of education, personal growth and vision? Does middle management nourish the strength and potential of its workforce by facilitating information taxonomy and its distribution? Or do most structures suffer from a command-and-control mentality going back to the enlightenment age and war room strategies? Much more could be written about spiders, but I hope that we all could gain a better appreciation for the sustainable world which is just around us. May we strive to contribute and make our work and world a better place where more sustainable values become the drivers of our business endeavors. In the meanwhile, we continue to deplete our earth from the very resources that sustain our physical lives. One thing is certain: the air we breathe, the food we eat, the sleep we need and the love we cherish, none of these components will ever be digitalized.Please follow Bruno Gebarski on Twitter or on Google+ at: http://Twitter.com/BrunoGebarskihttp://bitly.com/BrunoGebarski

It is frustrating to see how Twitter safeguards its own ecosystem and paralyzes non-tech users like us by making it so awkward to create RSS feeds. Twitter struck again at the end of October last year, by removing the atom feed from their services. Is there a simple non-technical way around it? Well it might be connected to a bit of extra work and tweaking, but it’s well worth putting the effort into it.1. Identifying your Twitter #hashtags (keywords)There is a fabulous tool called “What Hashtag” (freely given to us by a Spanish group of programmers) that does a reliable job at researching and selecting the most popular Twitter-hashtags. Let’s say we are trying to find the proper Twitter-hashtags (and those are very specific) for ‘social business’. In our ‘social business’ search we shall include the Boolean operator “quote” in order to single out the results for “social business” only:

You may notice that each word is hyperlinked to its corresponding Twitter-feed: very handy indeed. It is now easier to identify the community connected to the “#socbiz” word or Twitter hashtag. A word of caution please: run the search several times and update it on a regular basis because things change fast on the Twittosphere.The second tool is presented to us by Dan Zarrella: Tweetcharts.com. Tweetcharts goes one step further by giving us a full array of added information: – General statistics about links, retweets, replies, mentions, hashtags– Top words and most mentioned users– Other corresponding hashtags, links and media (images and videos)Before we start creating RSS feeds, we need to understand a bit about encoding. The Albion Research Ltd. application “encodes or decodes a string using URL Encoding. URL Encoding is used when placing text in a query string to avoid it being confused with the URL itself. It is normally used when the browser sends form data to a web server.” So here is an example for us to try: Plain Text:Hey What’s the heck with social media? Encoded Text:Hey%20what’s%20the%20heck%20with%20social%20media%3F

http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=@dpontefract OR @Euan OR @hjarche OR @jonhusband OR @KateNasser OR @rashkenas OR @rhappe OR @rossdawson OR @tdebaillon OR @BrunoGebarskiNow paste this string into the Albionresearch.com website to obtain he following encoded feed:

Remove unwanted spaces (due to blog formatting) and paste this final RSS feed into your reader, but first do not forget to replace the names, including mine, with the Tweeps of your choice! Now you have your personalized twitter stream as an RSS feed with all the authors you wish to keep up with. Easy and simple is not it?Now it’s your turn: How do you keep up with your favorite Tweeps? Any tools you would recommend? Looking forward to your comments and suggestions.Please follow me on Twitter:http://Twitter.com/BrunoGebarski

A few days ago, I started a series on innovative power — one of the fruits of Enterprise 2.0 or Social Business. How do we get creative, divergent and provocative? How do we forsake our day-to-day fire extinguishing duties (and we all have them) and force ourselves to get physically out of our office buildings, companies, towns, states or countries? Too many companies are routinely stuck in extinguishing the daily fires of their business responsibilities such as:

Any one of us could easily yawn while reading those bullet points. But beware, so do our co-workers and employees, if these represent the bulk of their daily to-do-lists! I absolutely admire the innovative Google spirit of letting employees mix up their worksheet by setting their own “20-Percent Time.” Customer Experience (CX) can only be achieved if companies first learn to establish Employee Experience (EX), which has long been the case at Google. Google receives more than two million CV’s every year; the irrefutable evidence that Employee Experience has long been one of the ways Google retains attractive, creative and innovative talents.

Without any further ado here are five more points on how to foster creativity:

1. Schedule, sponsor and organize FUN or CRAZINESS within your business premises.

“When fun is a regular part of work, employees get to know each other as real people,” Paul Spiegelman, CEO of Beryl Companies, told Inc. To that end, Spiegelman created a ‘Department of Great People and Fun’ and instituted ‘Pajama’ day and ‘Dress like the 70s’ day. “While these ideas are not practical for every work environment, the key is to do something fun, no matter how small, on a regular basis,” The key here is to break company silos and barriers! A bit like in Germany, when neighbors, who traditionally rarely talk to each other suddenly get together for a pint of beer or more during the famous Cologne Carnival Festivities and this … until the wee hours of the night! Eric Ryan, founder of Method, a soap and cleaning products company in San Francisco, thinks adding some “weirdness” to your corporate culture inspires employees to accomplish a lot. In the past, Ryan hasn’t hesitated to dress up as a chipmunk, blast Eye of the Tigerin the elevator, or host flash mob dance parties at his offices. “It reminds everybody that, ‘Yeah, I’m working somewhere really special’.”

At Zappos not only is weirdness encouraged, but it is also integral part of its company core values: “Create Fun And A Little Weirdness”. At first, employees will be careful and suspicious particularly if a traditional hierarchical structure suddenly endeavors to humanize its practices, but management and leaders have to first break the ice and lead the way! Culture is the fundamental catalyst that will open the doors to employee reciprocity. Corporate Culture will most likely generate employee engagement and employee initiative, which in turn will trigger creativity and innovation. Remember to be a little crazy and weird “À La Zappos” so to say! It will automatically break down some communication barriers, encourage creative thinking, unleash motivation and most probably reduce employee turnover.

4. Find out what your employees are passionate about.

On one of his websites, trainer and guru Ken Blanchard suggests twelve different areas for employee work passion. Organization factors such as collaboration, performance expectations, growth, procedural justice (fairness) and distributive justice (rewards) are fundamental values to a Social Business Culture if future employee passion is being hoped for. Does your company truly know what your workforce is passionate about? Have you ever asked them? Genuinely found out? Maybe it is time for HR to revisit and reconsider, don’t you think? Let’s make no mistake about it, passionate employees will be much more inclined to bear additional work hours than a disengaged or passive crowd of workers.

5. Create writable walls and workforce sharing spaces

Food and drinks always bring people together. Like any local bar, it is a place for venting, sharing or listening while drinking a pint of your favorite Weiss Beer or Lager! How about coming up with a company bar where workers could get together after work? Would not it be great to enjoy a drink, casually chat while exchanging ideas with CXOs?

“Says tvsdesign’s Don Ricker, ‘Our most successful office designs feature writable walls in large open spaces where multiple people from diverse teams gather to exchange ideas and feedback. This fosters genuine collaboration along with a sense of play and fun, which in turn, opens the floodgates of creativity while serving as a potent morale booster.’”

How are you fostering company creativity and employee divergent thinking? How are you systematically destroying the silos of traditional communication and replacing them with a flat, open cultu.re? Looking forward to your comments.